Author Profile

Jonathan Butcher

Jonathan Butcher serves as senior policy analyst in the Center for Education Policy at the Heritage Foundation. He has researched and testified on education policy and school choice programs around the U.S., and his work has appeared in journals such as Education Next and the Georgetown Journal of Law and Public Policy.

He has appeared on local and national TV and radio outlets, including C-SPAN, Fox News, and HBO’s Vice News Tonight. His commentary has appeared nationally in places such as the Wall Street Journal, Education Week, National Review Online, and Forbes.com, along with newspapers around the country.

In 2017 he was a co-recipient of the State Policy Network’s Bob Williams Award for Most Influential Research for a proposal to protect free speech on campus, alongside Stanley Kurtz of the Ethics and Public Policy Center and Jim Manley of the Goldwater Institute.

Jonathan previously served as the education director at the Goldwater Institute, where he remains a senior fellow.

Articles by Jonathan Butcher

Editor’s Note: This is an excerpt from The Not-So-Great Society, published by the Heritage Foundation. Who cares that 20 students at the University of Wisconsin staged a protest in October 2017? Just months earlier, violence broke out at the University of California, Berkeley, after the invitation of a controversial speaker to campus. In March, a … Continue reading “Conserve Free Speech on Campus”

Higher education media has gone “all in” for keeping college campuses closed this fall, with articles like “The Case Against Reopening” in The Chronicle of Higher Education and “Colleges Are Deluding Themselves” in The Atlantic, just to mention a few. Their basic premise: Reopening would be irresponsible because many students, faculty, and staff will get sick, some will … Continue reading “The Case for Reopening College Campuses “

Many college graduates think to themselves, “I don’t have any immediate job prospects that are attractive and I can easily get into grad school with the chance of eventually getting my PhD and then a tenured professorship; I guess that’s what I’ll do.” If you know anyone in that situation, do him or her a … Continue reading “Are You Sure You Want to Go to Grad School?”

To say that the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill has experienced racial tensions in the last few years would be an understatement. The most visible source of conflict has been the fate of the infamous—and illegally toppled —Confederate statue, Silent Sam. But even after the statue’s demise, activists at Chapel Hill insist that … Continue reading “UNC-Chapel Hill Creates Commission to Battle ‘Invisible Racism’”

To say that the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill has experienced racial tensions in the last few years would be an understatement. The most visible source of conflict has been the fate of the infamous—and illegally toppled —Confederate statue, Silent Sam. But even after the statue’s demise, activists at Chapel Hill insist that … Continue reading “UNC-Chapel Hill Creates Commission to Battle ‘Invisible Racism’”

A question of power is at the heart of the new and interesting book by Helen Pluckrose and James Lindsay. The Anglo-American liberal duo did a tremendous service to the academy in 2018 by hoaxing several “grievance studies” journals that publish shoddy activist scholarship. Their book, “Cynical Theories: How Activist Scholarship Made Everything about Race, … Continue reading “A War Against ‘Normal’”

Higher education reform will only come from the outside, probably from political reform. Or so we thought. Along came the coronavirus, also an outside force, that is upsetting the status quo in higher education. State universities are now preparing to cut budgets in the face of inevitable funding reductions from states and drops in student … Continue reading “Idaho’s Higher Education Earthquake?”

Recent Articles

Higher education media has gone “all in” for keeping college campuses closed this fall, with articles like “The Case Against Reopening” in The Chronicle of Higher Education and “Colleges Are Deluding Themselves” in The Atlantic, just to mention a few. Their basic premise: Reopening would be irresponsible because many students, faculty, and staff will get sick, some will … Continue reading “The Case for Reopening College Campuses “

Students from about 100 universities brought class-action lawsuits against colleges that have refused to give tuition refunds after COVID-19 shut down campuses. So far, the only aid students have received has come through the federal CARES Act. Those universities facing lawsuits include large, nationally known schools such as Drexel University, the University of Miami, and … Continue reading “Did You Know? Student Lawsuits and De Facto Refunds”

Many college graduates think to themselves, “I don’t have any immediate job prospects that are attractive and I can easily get into grad school with the chance of eventually getting my PhD and then a tenured professorship; I guess that’s what I’ll do.” If you know anyone in that situation, do him or her a … Continue reading “Are You Sure You Want to Go to Grad School?”

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